Resource sharing: a Union Experience

Several libraries use state or regional union catalogs as their primary method of resource sharing. Making a request through the union catalog is often cheaper and more efficient than other methods for fulfilling ILL requests. Union catalogs come in all shapes and sizes and are unique in terms of policies and members.

We will look at three union catalogs–MelCat-(Michigan), Swift (Colorado State Library) and Prospector (CO Alliance of Research Libraries) that have been in operation over the last 10 years. Members from each will discuss how they became established, how they were able to agree on policies, and some of the challenges and opportunities of resource sharing.